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American, Mason County area, Kentucky
Sugar Desk, 1810-1840
Cherry, poplar, other woods
31 7/8 x 29 x 13 15/16 in. (81 x 73.7 x 35.4 cm.)
From the Noe Collection, Gift of Bob and Norma Noe, Lancaster, Kentucky 2010.7
William Clark
British, dates unknown
Sugar Boiling House, Antigua, West Indies, from Ten Views in the Island of Antigua, in Which are Represented the Process of Sugar Making (London, 1823)
Collection of the John Carter Brown Library, Brown University
Rudolph T. Lux, Decorator
American, born Germany, 1815-1868
Pitcher, c. 1865
Porcelain
Collection of the Speed Art Museum, from Nettie B. Smith 2016.9
Nathaniel Kinsey, Jr.
American, born 1829
After a drawing by E. Bott
Probably American, 1800-1899
View of the Ohio, Maysville, KY
Gift of Miss Catherine M. Grey 1950.3.14
American, Probably Madison County, Kentucky
Sugar Chest, 1800-1820
Walnut, poplar, other woods
From the Noe Collection, Gift of Bob and Norma Noe, Lancaster, Kentucky 2011.9.48
William Clark
British, dates unknown
Sugar Plantation Mill Yard, Antigua, West Indies, from Ten Views in the Island of Antigua, in Which are Represented the Process of Sugar Making (London, 1823)
Collection of the John Carter Brown Library, Brown University
George Stewart
American, 1819-1876
Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky
Monteith/Punchbowl, c. 1843
Silver
Purchased with funds from the Alice Speed Stoll Endowed Art Acquisition Fund 2017.13.1
French
Toussaint Louverture Chef des Noirs Insurgés de Saint Domingue, c. 1802
Ink on paper
Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library
Sugar Cane Plantation, Jamaica, 1909
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division,
The New York Public Library Digital Collections
NOVEMBER 15, 2023 – APRIL 7, 2024
Kentucky Gallery
The human desire for sweetness is centuries old. The Kentucky sugar chest—and iterations such as desks, presses, bureaus, and boxes—is an idiosyncratic furniture form made from about 1790 to 1850, specifically for the storage of sugar. Skilled Kentucky cabinetmakers used local materials to create these highly specialized forms to store costly refined white sugar and brown sugar that was grown, harvested, granulated, and refined by enslaved men, women, and children. Prominently displayed in Kentucky parlors or dining rooms, a sugar chest reflected the wealthy status of its owner, and supported social rituals such as coffee, tea, and alcohol consumption, which further showcased and reinforced a prosperous economic standing. The powerful nostalgic sentiment that has long been associated with utilitarian sugar furniture, which often incorporates fanciful and regionally specific decoration, contradicts the brutal history of the sweet substance it was made to store. The Bitter and the Sweet: Kentucky Sugar Chests, Enslavement, and the Transatlantic World 1790-1865 will reexamine the objects within the broader, intertwined contexts of the Atlantic economy, the vicious human toll of enslavement, and the complex transportation and merchant systems that brought sugar to Kentucky from the West Indies and sugar-growing regions of the Americas. Sugar furniture and related objects, contemporary artwork, tools, and archival materials will reflect the bitter reality of sugar production and trade from New World beginnings to the end of the Civil War, and will point to modern-day health legacies related to sugar consumption.
* Many historic images and illustrations of sugar production do not accurately depict the brutal conditions and harsh realities of enslavement. Instead, they often present idealized or romanticized views of labor, landscapes, or clothing to disguise the persistent hardships and violence inflicted upon enslaved men, women, and children. Those who benefitted economically from enslaved labor and sugar production, including wealthy landowners and merchants, may have sought to preserve and advance the plantation system—and enslavement—by promoting this type of imagery.
Planning, research, and development for this exhibition was supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
The Bitter and the Sweet: Kentucky Sugar Chests, Enslavement, and the Transatlantic World 1790-1865 in the Press
New exhibit, community event for Black History Month at the Speed Art Museum – Wave 3 News, 2.15.24